Into the Trek Universe: Section 31

 

Where to start on this one.

Firstly, it's not as bad as the slew of reviews have made fans believe. It's (and I've said this a few times today) not as great as it could have been but by no means is it absolutely horrific.

Originally planned as a full series, Section 31 was retooled into a 95 minute made-for-streaming movie following COVID-19, the writers' strike and also Michelle Yeoh winning an Oscar.

Major factors indeed which have led to the first Trek movie since Star Trek Beyond and the first to premiere outside of a cinema. The world has indeed changed since Beyond and this is definitely a sign of how Star Trek is attempting to fit into this new age and find, probably, a new audience.

Let's be honest, Star Trek fans aren't the youngsters they once were. The franchise is on the cusp of its 60th birthday and the recent Prodigy proved to be a bigger hit with the existing fanbase than attracting a new and younger audience. Kurtzman and co are about to try again with their young adult show, Academy but I fear the same result again.

But to Section 31 and to term it quickly, it's a fairly run of the mill action flick that is set in the Star Trek universe. Returning Michelle Yeoh as Terran Emperor Phillipa Georgiou, she is teamed with a group of Section 31 agents sent to track down a typically dangerous weapon.

As it turns out, Georgiou is more than familiar with the weapon, named Godsend, since she ordered its creation in the Mirror Universe. How inconvenient to run into it again during Star Trek's Lost Era.

Add in a bit of Georgiou backstory as to how she became Emperor and you have a fairly briskly paced and explosive hour and half to settle in for. But that's really about it. Section 31 is OK at best and disappointing at worst. It's not that its bland but something here just doesn't quite work. The movie is certainly an attempt to tell a story outside of the "norms" of Star Trek's Starfleet crew and starship combo but the nuances and subterfuge that made Section 31 so interesting in DS9 and Enterprise are long gone. Their activities are about as subtle as using a sledgehammer to open an envelope and we've diverged into areas of high tech and gunslinging rather than the shadowy manipulation and dealings that made Sloan such a great foil for the DS9 crew. Tailored more for the Fast and Furious audience, Section 31 is short and snappy with little to think about beyond the superficial action and pedestrian plot. Don't expect lengthy debates on the morality of the universe or one to ones that build on relationships because this is a very disposable cast.

Comprising of an Augment, a mech-suited soldier, a badly accented Irish robot piloted by a nano-being, a Chameloid and a Deltan, it's the perfect mismatch team accompanied by Starfleet observer Lt Rachel Garrett. The potential is great but just when you feel like it's getting going or there's another chance for Michelle Yeoh to perform some of her trademark martial arts work, someone drops an attempt at a joke or there's a humorous twist on a moment which just rips the heart out of the story and believability. In respect to the characters themselves there's very little if any form of development for them and Garrett's turn from "stick up her ass" scientist to embracing chaos is limited and rushed in seconds when it happens. 

None of the characters are dislikeable but none of them are particularly memorable either, maybe with the exception of Garrett because we know the name. Indeed, if it wasn't for the fact that fans will know she becomes the captain of the ill-fated USS Enterprise-C, you'd never know what era of the Trek franchise this is set in. Garrett could be interchanged for any other Starfleet officer from any era and the story would still work. It's a terrible use of what should be an enthralling experience to see this time period but there's generic rock planet, space station with bar and dark ship interiors which give no real feel to the setting. 

That's really the problem here. It's just OK. The effects are OK, the ships are OK, the script is meh and the use of the Godsend is another "weapon-o-mass-destruction" that is a path so heavily trodden it's turned into a ditch. A shame in a big way and I did wonder how this would have played out over a full series as I can't imagine they wrote the whole thing off and started again. Maybe the characters would have received more time to flex their wings and allow us to care more about them and that's perhaps another fail here in that for the first time we have a brand new set of characters (bar two at a stretch) who are brought in for 95 minutes and that's it. Every Star Trek movie before this has utilised an existing set of characters and built on the audience's knowledge of them. Section 31 has not been afforded that luxury which means that you're only really invested in Georgiou to any degree but then Michelle Yeoh isn't given the greatest script to work with.

The door is left open for a sequel as you would expect but I can't see it getting a green light. I'm not even sure if it justifies a rewatch for a considerable time if ever and that's not something I wanted to say. Kudos though to Kurtzman and al for their balls to try something different which has definitely been a hallmark of their journey from Discovery's first episode to this moment. Each show has been different, each iteration has offered a new perspective and stretched the Star Trek franchise in new ways that the Berman era of the '80's and '90's never really dared to. That's one thing to applaud as they've never shied away from being unique. But Section 31 just doesn't seem to fit in aside from a vehicle to bring Michelle Yeoh back and round of Georgiou's story  bit more neatly than it was in Discovery. Maybe reaching too far outside the original vision of Star Trek has now been proven to be a move too much and that this isn't what fans signed up for.

The counter problem to that is, TV and film have moved on a lot since 1966, 1987 and even 2009. Production is a machine turning out content at an alarming rate and Kurtzman's factory has produced more Star Trek variants since 2017 than were made between 1966 and 2005. That's a frightening amount of diversity if not equalling the number of episodes across those original four decades.

As a diversion until Strange New Worlds' third season drops later this year, this will make do but I suspect it will be some time before another of these one-off movie projects drops given the reception to this entry to the franchise. 

How did it got for you? Is this the worst Trek ever or a sign of the franchise stretching its wings that little bit further into the universe rather than just Starfleet?

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Somewhat Animated

It's back! Again!

Discovery, Picard...and now CBS All Access has announced that Mike McMahan will be helming Lower Decks, the next Star Trek series to boldly go in the Kurtzman era.

But what makes this any different from the multitude of series before it? Well this one won't be live action and for the first time since 1974 we'll be seeing an animated Star Trek.

The title itself might also suggest where this is going to be set - away from the bridge and senior staff just as we experienced with the classic The Next Generation episode of the same name. 

Press for the show has confirmed that it has been ordered for two series and will focus on the support staff of a particularly unimportant starship - and it's going to be a comedy. It will be produced by CBS Eye Animation along with (of course) Alex Kurtzman's Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment.

My affinity for Star Trek's lighter moments is not well publicised - because it don't exist - so I'm quite unsettle by this announcement today. What does sway in it's favour is that Mike McMahan was responsible for the @TNG_S8 Twitter account and the subsequent Warped book which was a mighty good read and also the rather excellent Rick and Morty TV series. It does suggest that there's going to be a top level of quality plus a creative mind that knows its Star Trek which does give me hope.

Star Trek's history with animation is limited to its brief dalliance in the mid-70's which saw the original cast (except Walter Koenig) reprise their roles vocally. The results were mixed with one highlight certainly being the time-travelling Yesteryear that filled in some of Spock's backstory as well as the first mention of Tiberius as Kirk's middle name and even the appearance of the Enterprise's first commanding officer Robert April. 

Now the original animated run was not considered part of canon which might suggest this will also be held outside of the timeline but at this stage we don't even know what point in the Star Trek universe it will even be set. My guess is that it will be in the 24th Century with McMahan's previous works being set in that time period rather than adding anything else into the 23rd Century. 

I am really looking forward to seeing what kind of characters, ships and adventures we're in for although the comedy element still sits tapping away for attention on my shoulder annoyingly.

Have a look back through Star Trek history and there have been a few attempts to resurrect Star Trek as an animated series. Final Frontier was one example that could have made it in the post-Enterprise pre-Kelvin universe with Captain Alexander Chase and his crew facing off against the Klingons in the far future where the Federation has crumbled following war with the Romulans. It piqued CBS's interest but a certain 2009 film stopped it dead in its tracks which is a shame because there's a whole host of characters developed and a lot of great material available at the developers' website. Go take a look, there's scripts an' everything!

A second could have been a Captain Sulu series on the Enterprise-B battling the Kzinti (ironically a baddie from The Animated Series in the '70's) but again nothing really happened and details are a a little slim on this one. A third might have come from Kurtzman and Orci off the back of the 2009 reboot but allegedly it was early in the game and securing the movie series was the first thing that needed to be done before Star Trek could spread its wings wider.

Other question - will this mean we are at peak Star Trek saturation? Will the quality here wain because there will be three shows - each with a very distinct personality - but they will be running concurrently and it'll be the first time three such stories will be on air at the same time. The nearest it's been to this was the year in which we had Voyager, Deep Space Nine and First Contact being made.

Personally I'd LOVE to see it set in that missing era between Generations (Kirk era) and Encounter at Farpoint - retro, filled with movie era uniforms, chunky starships, armoured up Klingons and all aboard something really small like a Sydney Class or an Oberth Class ship. Could this be the crew going in to "clean up" after the "big boys" have been in and completed first contact? I think that would be a great line to take.

But now we have confirmation that an animated Star Trek series is not too far away - certainly closer than 1973-74 and means that there are now two shows in pre-production to get excited about. Let's hope that it stays strictly in the Star Trek mould however with a sprinkling of humour in there to lighten the tone and make it more accessible to a younger audience. This could be the start of something even bigger and I think if this is done right then there's a whole truckload of merchandise that could be coming off the back of it.

Fun times ahead!!!

What would you want to see from a more humourous Star Trek?

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Picard Deserves a Return

The initial news that Alex Kurtzman had secured a deal to oversee Star Trek for the next five years - and the potential introduction of four new elements to the franchise - was met with a great deal of positivity.

But the news shortly after that was, apparently, that Patrick Stewart was close to a deal which would see him return as Jean-Luc Picard very nearly broke the internet.

I may have slightly exaggerated there but that's what it felt like. Could Picard return after 16 years? Had Patrick Stewart verbally agreed that it was going to happen?

Part of me was dead excited at the prospect while a tiny little bit wondered if it was worth retreading the boards after such a long absence from the screen. How would Picard fair after such a long gap between appearances - four years more than the gap between Turnabout Intruder and The Motion Picture if you were wondering versus Kirk's tenure in command.

Yet of all the captains of the five "older" series, Picard is the one who deserves one final last hurrah more than any other. In 1994 William Shatner bowed out as Kirk taking on Malcolm McDowell's Soran in Star Trek Generations. In 1999 Avery Brooks ascended to become one with the Prophets/Wormhole Aliens in What You Leave Behind and closed the seven year story of Deep Space Nine. Janeway not only brought the crew home in Endgame but to rub salt into the Picard-sized injury she turned up promoted to dish out Jean-Luc's orders in Nemesis. Even Archer had some sort of finality to proceedings with his background being revealed onscreen in In a Mirror, Darkly (future Federation president) and overseeing the formation of the Federation in Enterprise's substandard series finale.

But Picard never got that shot. All Good Things... had a great ending in the form of the poker game yet there was nothing conclusive because The Next Generation's cast were going from TV straight into movies with Generations which was a mere continuation to their adventures in a bigger format. 

Both in the case of Janeway and Sisko there was a finality to their respective series and their purpose was done; circle was complete etc etc... but there was never a Big Plan for Picard mainly because of the era in which The Next Generation was conceived.  Think about this as well - The Next Generation was massively popular, moreso than the three shows that followed it so why wouldn't you want to draw from that televisual well of success and see if you can reel in those fans who have not warmed to Discovery and are hankering for the olden days. Surely they will flock in their droves to the screen whatever the size to see Picard back in action once again. Not only is it great for news coverage but it won't hurt the profit margin either I would expect.

The concept of the story arc, the expansive universe building and all those other pieces which helped shape Deep Space Nine and most certainly Discovery were still some years away. The Next Generation was episodic and to give Picard some form of arc and ultimate purpose now could be an amazing thing to do. On the flip side it does kind of go against the set up of the role in its very episodic nature!

The ending for Nemesis might have see Riker moving to the Titan and the death of Data but for Picard the world spun onwards and there was no concrete conclusion to his story.

So off he wanders down one of the Enterprise-E's many curved corridors with the knowledge that Data may not be dead since B4 can sing Irving Berlin. But there's no finality, no closure to the journey for Picard even at that point in what was billed as A Generation's Final Journey Has Begun. Not only can Kurtzman provide this but he can do something that many fans have been begging for since the announcement of a new Star Trek series over two years ago - something set post-Nemesis, a show set in the far, far future.

Perhaps we are thinking on too grand a scale. Might this be a TV movie for CBS or its All Access platform? Perhaps a six part series to round off the voyages of The Next Generation and thereby destroy nearly two decades of the literary universe?! Very credible option but what if Picard is going to turn up as a cameo just to send a new crew off on their voyages or act as a mentor across several episodes, turning up sporadically or even just the once as he did for Emissary? 

There really is no way to be concrete certain what the plan apart from Stewart to return to the role somehow in the very near future. Then there could be that Logan style sendoff which Stewart oddly enough also appeared in as Professor X - there's lots of possibilities and I'm sure you already have your own dream of how he should come back.

Stweart's Picard is also a good choice to bring back because he represents everything that the Federation stands for; he's an old school believer in the Prime Directive who will stand for what is right and is the model diplomat. He is the statesman of the Star Trek universe and would give a stable balance between the action of Discovery and the more thoughtful overview presented in those 1980's and '90's iterations of the Roddenberry vision.

Picard is one of the most iconic Star Trek characters of all time and to bring him back into a universe that has only just discovered Discovery and that Spock had an adopted sister is a bold move indeed. You have to ask how the vision of Picard's 24th Century will be remastered just as the 23rd has been and whether or not he'll even be in the 24th Century. Might Kurtzman actually be about to whisk him back in time just because...? How much influence on the character direction (conclusion?) will Patrick Stewart - now 77 - be allowed?

The mind truly boggles but Picard - if not the Enterprise-D/E crew - deserve a stronger finale and way to round off the narrative of that generation cleanly. Is it Star Trek's biggest open dangled thread that had no way to be paid off at the time? I'd say so and I trust that the Kurtzman era will respect the character and not ruin one of the franchise's great icons. Who would have thought that when he stepped out of the shadows of the observation lounge in 1987 that we would be contemplating his continuing adventures 31 years later? Who'd have thought indeed...

What's your theory on how Picard will return to Star Trek? How would you like to see him bow out? Drop your thoughts below!!!

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Schedule Fuller Than Expected

Dammit - it now seems that due to an outrageous workload, apparent saviour of Star Trek on TV, Bryan Fuller is handing over the main reins of the show to another.

News has emerged that Fuller is finding it difficult to manage the show and continue with other commitments leading Gretchen J Berg and Aaron Harberts stepping up to the plate.  

After the delay from January to May 2017 this is yet another grumble for fans to contend with. What started out as an amazing possibility and one that offered new hope for the franchise on the small screen one thing seems to lead to another. 

Fuller appeared to be the light at the end of the tunnel - someone who understood the franchise more than Alex Kurtzman and Heather Kadin and could steer the show in a positive direction that would honour the Roddenberry vision yet be something new and exciting. As of now that seems to be over.

Fuller will continue to exec produce and guide the story of the show but day to day will be in the hands of Berg, Harberts and Alex Kurtzman.

So who are these guys?

Both Berg and Harberts have history with our main man Mr Fuller, working with him on Wonderfalls and Pushing Daisies and working alongside each other on virtually everything from that time onwards - Mercy, Off the Map, GCB, Revenge and Reign. Clearly it's a strong pairing that's worked although my concern with this is that none of their works have been particularly long-lived. In Harberts case his longest producing role was 22 episodes for Mercy (although he did produce/co-produce Roswell High for longer - 39 - but not in a single role). Is this a wise move? Not sure because these guys don't seem to stick around too long in one place so we could have a new showrunner by the end of the first year/Fuller back depending on how they handle the vision. Might there be an option for Nick Meyer to have a stronger lean on the show for its second season IF it gets green lit?

So now we sit six months from premiere date (or one and a bit if we were still looking at a January start) with a few seconds of footage and a picture of some antennae to show since the announcement in November 2015. Supposedly a few rumours have suggested casting announcements will be forthcoming but with the continual changes going on I'm not holding out any hope - all we seem to be getting is negative and there needs to be some positivity!

The way that other sites are reporting this is that Fuller has utterly abandoned the project which is 100% untrue. He's written the first two episodes and remains in control of the bigger picture rather than dealing with the day to day minutiae. Rather than reporting this is surely just the first stage to it being cancelled (yes, seriously there are some sites pushing that), more that it's an evolution process for the show. What guarantee was there that Fuller would have remained for the duration anyway? Was he actually pulled in just to get the show back on the right track? 

Reports from io9 indicate that as well as our lead non-captain role there will be a male gay character, two admirals and a Klingon captain at the forefront of Discovery. If true then this does cement the possibility that we are going to see the Klingon War and by assumption the Battle of Axanar. Fuller has teased that the show will be very different to any previous Star Trek series and by having this Klingon role plus the two admirals you get the impression that Discovery is going to be set across several locations rather than the familiar single Starfleet vessel we have known since The Original Series. Heck, we might even spend a decent amount of time on an old Klingon ship.

While I remain enthusiastically optimistic I can also see where the doubt could be creeping in - the delays, no casting news, multiple production head changes -is it becoming a case of too many cooks or should it be more a case that there is a lot of creativity being mined to make this the best Star Trek show ever made?

Honestly I don't think we have anything to worry about since Bryan Fuller's imprint on the show has already been made and his overseeing gaze will keep the show pointed in the right direction. These are not new names in the mix and have been working with Fuller since Day One so let's give them a chance to make their mark. 

Concerned? Happy? Undecided if all this is a good move?

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The Famous Five?

Am I missing something here? 

We now have a total of five executive producers announced for the upcoming Star Trek series with the names of Ted Roth and Rod Roddenberry added to the list which already includes Alex Kurtzman, Heather Kadin and Bryan Fuller.

Dropping a comment onto Twitter I did get a few responses around the point that this seems to be a large list of people that are exec producing. But it's not, seemingly, that big if you look at Hannibal which had six - eight if you include the two involved with the pilot. The largest Star Trek managed was three for Voyager with Taylor, Piller and Berman. From discussion with @sir_swish2262 on Twitter I checked just what the definition of the role is and it seems that it is to supervise the creative content as well as the financial aspects of the production. 

Now my grumble was as to why they need five (at present) exec producers to manage the new series but actually, it does make some sense because each brings a different aspect to the show. While five might be a lot to manage the money, let's just think how this is potentially (and I thought about this overnight) a good thing for the show and not the mistake I considered it to be at 7pm last night.

Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth represent the Gene Roddenberry vision, the masters of the original series, the keepers of the legacy from the creator of the show. They may well help steer the ship so that it brings the ethos that made the adventures of Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the USS Enterprise crew so memorable and, at times, controversial. Their appointment actually makes sense because of the other individuals charged with holding the creative reins of the show.

Bryan Fuller acts as a link to the 90's Star Trek, specifically to Deep Space Nine and Voyager while Kurtzman brings more recent exposure and experience from the reboots of 2009 and Into Darkness. With this wealth of televisual and cinematic Star Trek, enhanced even more so by the presence of the "six day wonder" that is Nicholas Meyer in the writers' room, I have to admit that this is sizing up to be uber-impressive. What of Heather Kadin though? Perhaps this is where the money will be overseen or perhaps she's there to ensure everyone else is reined in and reminded that this is Star Trek for 2017 and not 1996. I guess someone needs to be able to keep a modern perspective since there are so many experienced Star Trek faces now associated with the show. Once again, just take note how Kurtzman and Kadin have kept to the background. Are these two the real power behind the throne with overall CBS control to oversee Fuller, Roddenberry and Roth?

roddenberry.com

When I heard that Rod Roddenberry was going to be involved at the exec level I was a little tepid on the idea. Aside from a website and carrying the Roddenberry name the only real contact I've had with his work is the documentary, Trek Nation, he produced a few years back and that was about it. I never even considered that he would be attached to the 2017 series. His knowledge of the show and input will no doubt be much sought especially to help keep that eye on the original beliefs of his father's creation and on the flip side it's a cunning political move that may help to win over some of those viewers who were initially put off knowing that Kurtzman was involved at the senior decision-making level. Roth too, if you check out his IMDB page has that link to Trek Nation and only a few other credits including Questor from 2016 which I'm guessing is something akin to the Roddenberry pilot The Questor Tapes which never made it to a full series.

We are now only ten months away from the premiere of the show and these seemingly weekly updates and announcements are helping to maintain and increase the interest around the show. Eagle-eyed Twitter users may also have seen a conversation between Ben Robinson from the Official Starships Collection and @jvancitters around whether the model series will get a chance to produce replicas from the show. I would think this is looking like a very real possibility and with the magazine series heading to at least 110 issues there's going to be more than enough time to drop some of the new ships in. For note, I reckon we'll be around issue 80 or so when the show hits screens.

And talking of screens it seems that CBS are more than aware of their international fan base since they are looking carefully at how it will be distributed outside the US. Streaming services such as Netflix have been interested as indicated by CBS CEO Les Moonves but I wouldn't be surprised to see it head to satellite or maybe even a domestic channel in the UK.

From everything that is going on around this show I have become a lot more positive about its prospects since there appears to be a big drive to get recognisable names to drive it forward. It makes me believe that it will be set in the Prime Universe but exactly when...?

Could it be in those lost years between Generations' opening Kirk sequence and Encounter at Farpoint? What about many years after Voyager? I'm not going to start spouting anymore guesses until we have something more concrete - just have to wait until next week then huh?!

How do you feel about the inclusion of a fourth and fifth exec producer for Star Trek 2017? Good move? Alarm reaction?

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Just to Recap - Here's the Headline

How am I feeling right now?

A bit shocked, surprised and very, very, very excited. Monday November 2nd 2015 has now joined the ranks of September 8th 1966 and September 28th 1987 in Star Trek lore because today it was announced that the show we love will be back on our screens in January 2017 courtesy of CBS and their All Access service. It's news we have been waiting a long time to hear and with the 50th anniversary around the corner I have to admit I was expecting us to hear something in 2016 rather than now. Still just can't believe it's going to happen!!!

I did breath a sigh of relief too because it more than likely means it won't be Captain Worf or Captain Sulu but it could be Uncharted which we know was pitched to CBS. Of course Beyond,  which is in no way linked to the series, will garner even more attention ahead of the 2017 show release which won't be a bad thing but it's just crazy to think that there is going to be new, televised Star Trek 12 years after it left our screens.

What do we know besides the launch date? Very little but that's to be expected since we're only having the fact Star Trek is returning announced. We also know that Alex Kurtzman is producing which suggests were going to see a series more action-orientated than before and may well take more nods from the JJ-verse style than Roddenberry's vision. I know the internet is already alight with 'it must have this' and 'they must do that' but, frankly, they can do what the hell they want with the franchise so prepare yourselves right now that you might not be completely happy with the results.

As for cast, concept, ship, aliens and the rest we know precisely zero. In fact we know  little more when it comes to Beyond which will be with us in a shade over seven months. But there's so much energy around this announcement that no one's really thinking about the finer points right now because we have at least confirmation that there will be new Star Trek on our TVs once a week.

We will be seeking out new life and new civilisations which suggests something going back to the roots of both The Original Series and The Next Generation so we could even get an Enterprise. Will it be in the future decades after Voyager?  Will it even be set in the Prime Universe?  Could it be set parallel to the action of the movies not dissimilar to Agents of SHIELD and the Marvel movies?  Can you imagine how incredible the visuals are going to look? Please let these characters actually have personalities that develop!!!

Who knows at this point what will arrive in 2017 because we don't even have confirmation of a script and there's no casting. Who they get to be involved will be vigorously scrutinised by every single fan and you just have the feeling that the next few months will be seething with Star Trek news either cinematic or televisual.

Behind the camera we have confirmed that Kurtzman acting as exec with Heather Kadin producing with him but apparently reporting up to Alex. Kurtzman's credits are eminently bankable having co-written two Star Trek movies plus Transformers, its sequel Revenge of the Fallen plus  The Amazing Spiderman 2. What strikes me is that while eminently bankable these aren't films that have been critically well-received or been that highly regarded for their scripts. I would also question whether he knows the franchise intimately as is sugested by the press release since the two previous Star Trek reboot movies have veered considerably from their inspiration.

Heather Kadin is an unknown quantity to me as I've not seen any of her work but she is directly linked with Kurtzman having worked with him on Scorpion, Sleepy Hollow and Limitless. What she will bring to the franchise I'm not really sure aside from some more fresh blood and a new set of eyes to work out the details. 

How we'll get to see it in the UK hasn't been revealed. In the US it will be first run on CBS All Access which costs $5.99 per week so we could see it land on something like Netflix prior to the seasonal box set release. The pilot will be shown on the main CBS network before going to the subscription service for the remainder of its run. In fact it will be the first new series to be shown in this manner by CBS.

The internet fury certainly kicked off quickly with over 49,000 tweets 109,000 tweets (amended 3/11/15) on the subject and key forums being flooded with the same story plus vehement analysis of the release. Star Trek fans certainly have concrete opinions and a series from the same stable that brought us the reboot is going to be controversial before the first frame has even been shot. Love it or hate it, Star Trek is back where it belongs on the small screen and it will undoubtedly divide the fanbase. But this is a different time, a new era in the franchise and I am looking forward to seeing how a new show is tackled differently to a reboot movie series or how it works to respect its heritage.

Starting counting down to January 2017 now because the news is going to be coming thick and fast now we have a launch date. Will there be a 26 episode season? Will we be on a Federation ship? Are they going to bring back the Borg? Will we see any significant cameos or is it all going JJ-verse? 

Tons of questions but I do think the fanbase can be incredibly harsh and at times go completely against IDIC if we don't like one single element but hey, it's an opinion right? For some people they will have already dismissed the show due to its announced production credits but I would rather wait and see what makes it to the screen. Could it kill Star Trek? Who knows right now because I think we're all still reeling from the fact that someone has faith to try it again. My mind is definitely swirling with a billion Star Trek thoughts that I need to sift through but let's be sure to give it a chance please and fans of the new show should be welcomed into the fold just as much as anyone who is passionate about the Roddenberry originals.

Hey, it could even become the biggest TV phenomenon of the 21st Century - now there's a thought....

Header image taken from startrek.com press release. All other images from Google Images

What do you think? If this isn't the biggest Star Trek news since the reboot was announced!!!

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